Burden
by Moonchild10
Summary: Lillian Shepherd has just lost one son. She cannot bear the thought of losing the other. And so she mourns the burden the Shepherd family has put on him and sends him away with his delusions. Set pre-Homecoming.


Long after a mostly numb and nonsense-babbling Alex had been put to bed with a copious amount of sleeping pills slipped into the glass of warm milk Lillian gave him to help calm him down, Adam Shepherd paced the length of the living room floor. He paced and he paced, as shafts of moonlight fell across the worn carpet, across the furniture and decorations that Lillian told the other ladies were "family heirlooms" but were mostly just things she had picked up at rummage sales. Adam was like a man possessed and for a moment Lillian actually feared her husband.

"Adam?" she asked softly, and this man who was the one person she was not supposed to fear ignored her words and went right on pacing. Lillian could hear the creaking of the old floorboards under his feet and somehow they sounded like her Joshua, and almost immediately the tears began to fall again. The hearse was gone and the lights of the police cars had faded but though the event was over for the responders for the Shepherd family it was only just beginning. "Adam?" she asked again. Her husband whirled around to face her, madness in his eyes and 5 o'clock shadow laced with gray on his chin.

"What is it, Lillian?" he asked, sounding tired and irritated and like he didn't want to speak to her. Lillian, in her usual chair by the window, rocked and rocked to ease her mind as she stared out into the world in which just hours ago both of her sons had lived.

"What… what's wrong with Alex?" she trembled a bit at the thought of his dead eyes, staring more through her than at her when he and Adam had appeared at the back door, Adam cradling Josh's soaked body in his arms. At the thought of her little boy with his broken neck lolling almost disgustingly on his shoulders she choked again and the tears streamed, quieter than before but still there. Water had dripped from his hair, his clothes, his dead and graying face. She had to look at the floor because she was afraid she would see him if she continued to look out the window.

"He's gone insane, that's what's wrong with him," Adam said roughly, pressing the back of his calloused hand to his lips. He had always had hands like that; soldier's hands. "There was always something wrong with that boy. Always."

"Don't say that," Lillian scolded. "There was never anything wrong with Alex. We only tried to convince ourselves that there was because…" she lowered her eyes, not even wanting to think of the sacrifice. The thought of holding her oldest son underwater made gooseflesh rise up on the backs of her arms.

"Well, there's something wrong with him now," Adam sighed and pressed his hand to his forehead, in a gesture of defeat, a weaker side to him she rarely saw. "And I'll be damned if I let him forget it."

"Adam!"

"It's his fault Josh is dead!" Adam told her harshly, turning toward her with fire in his eyes. "Don't you see that?"

"It was an accident," Lillian sobbed. "Alex didn't mean to. Alex would never anyone. He's a sweet boy, a gentle boy! He-"

"It doesn't matter, Lillian!" Adam turned away, and Lillian dropped her head into her hands in the rocking chair and sobbed. "What matters is that Josh is dead. Defending Alex isn't going to bring him back, Lil. Nothing is."

"I know that," Lillian had calmed just a bit now, no longer sobbing. Lillian had experience with tragedy and pain. After losing her mother to a terminal illness when she was a child and then nearly succumbing to the same hereditary disease in her twenties, she had gotten used to death, to accepting it as something that happened as a normal part of life. It was easier to stay calm than she had expected. However, it did not mean her emotions were not turbulent and it did not mean she did not want to lie down and simply never feel anything again.

"Then why defend the boy? He's done wrong, Lil, done so wrong…"

"Enough, Adam," she was weary and she did not want to hear what he had to say. For a moment there was silence in the lavish living room and then slowly Lillian lifted her eyes to look up at him. "Adam, what about… the sacrifice?" she said the word softly; she was afraid of it.

"We've been through this…"

"But now that Josh is-"

"Alex is the one we _chose_. We can't just… change it around," Adam's voice was heavy and he cracked his knuckles.

"I can't lose both of my boys," Lillian cried softly. "I can't. I'm not ready to lose them both."

"No one ever is," his voice was resolute.

"You can't ask me to do this, Adam!" Lillian's voice climbed the octaves, and she stood from her chair with the force of her conviction. "You can't ask me to help you murder our child!"

"You knew about this… when we decided to have Alex. We'd said it would be him. You knew about this the first time you ever looked at him, that it would come to this. You've always known. I don't want to do this any more than you do. But it has to be done. For us, for the people, for the town. The gods-"

"Forget the gods!" Lillian was desperate. She was crying and Adam came to her and put his hands over hers, clasped them gently in his large and rough hands. "To hell with them and Silent Hill and this ridiculous pact!"

"Lil…"

"Please…"

Adam paused, and she watched him watch her cry. The silence was so thick Lillian could barely breathe. After a long moment, Adam turned away, as though he didn't want to look at her. "We'll figure something out. Alchemilla, maybe. Probably. He has to go somewhere. That boy can't be a part of normal society anymore, regardless. Maybe he'd be better off locked up there."

"Thank you," Lillian sobbed as she closed the distance between them, grabbing his arm and holding it that way. It was too hard to embrace him right now; they were caught in the tide of their grief, separately. "Thank you."

"We'll have to tell Mary," Adam's voice was slow and deliberate. "That Josh is…" it was almost as though he couldn't stomach the word.

"She's on her honeymoon, Adam," Lillian sighed. "Give her time. At least give her a little time. When she and James get back…"

Adam was looking in her direction but not at her, almost as though he was looking through her. "I suppose it doesn't matter how long we wait," he said stiffly. "Dead is dead."

The silence enveloped them again and it was broken by a soft squeak, a foot on a loose floorboard, and the eyes of the grieving parents snapped up to the stairs where the shadowed figure of their oldest son stood like a leopard.

"Go back to bed, Alex!" Adam snapped viciously at the boy, and he stepped back as though he had been physically hit with the words. Lillian saw him wince and felt a long slow ebb of pain because she knew exactly what this boy's future would be. For just a moment he looked much younger than 17. It was like he was her baby again and she had to bite down on her handkerchief.

"Where's Josh?" Alex asked, sounding bleary and tired. His white t-shirt was blinding in the dim light. "He's not in his bed."

Adam glanced at Lillian and she could sense his worry, despite his attempts to distance himself from Alex since his childhood. It was true and she could not deny it; her son was insane. He was delusional. It was as though he was recreating reality in his own way because he was too frail to deal with the pain of losing his brother. For a moment he looked so small, so weak and pathetic though he was a strong boy like his father, that Lillian started to cry again, silently. Quickly she wiped the tears so her son wouldn't see them. This doomed child before her had a cross to bear, that he carried on his back for his family, and he could not see it or feel it. His burden made her hands shake, made her heart sick.

_"My poor Alex…"_

For a long moment Alex stood looking lost at the foot of the stairs, and Lillian had to turn away from him. She heard rather than saw what followed and she knew it was easier because she did not want to see his face as he was lied to.

"Where's Josh?"

"Josh is fine," Adam snapped. "Alex… next week you're going away."

"What?" Alex sounded alarmed. "Away where? Why?"

"Don't ask so many questions, boy. You're going to… military training." Lillian could hear the pause, the strain of the lie, in her husband's voice.

"What!"

"You said you wanted to be an army man, Alex. You've always said that. We're getting you started early."

"But-"

"But nothing. You'll be eighteen in a couple of months. I'm sure they'll overlook the age. You just finished high school, and that's good enough. No more arguing."

"But where's Josh?" Alex asked again, more forcefully this time. "Where's my brother?" Lillian turned slowly to see him looking wild with panic, on the verge of breaking down. It terrified her.

"Josh is with Mary," she replied. "Go back to bed, Alex."

This seemed good enough for Alex, never mind that Mary was gone on a honeymoon and the many other discrepancies in the answer. His mind was latching onto every possible ray of hope and Lillian, though she felt guilty feeding her son's delusional mind with lies, knew it was better than forcing him to live with the truth. What was it? Bad parenting? Cowardice? Nevertheless she allowed him to believe it and he drank it up like sweet milk, feeding on the lies that were so much warmer than the truth.

"Okay…" Alex turned on the stairs. "I was just making sure he was okay."

"He's fine. Goodnight, Alex."

"Goodnight, Mom."

Alex and Adam did not share a parting but Lillian saw him watch the boy's retreating back as he disappeared up the stairs with an indescribable pain in his usually hard eyes, a helplessness he could not conceal. Lillian went and got her knitting and worked until her hands bled, late into the night, because it was better than doing nothing. Somewhere toward morning she heard Alex cry out in his sleep and she felt frozen. She could not move. She could only cry.

_"God forgive us all…"_


End file.
